Angelina Jolie opens up about her journey with her three adopted children

When the pandemic lockdown first became a reality, Angelina Jolie thought that she’d finally learn to cook. It “never happened,” said the filmmaker, actor, and activist in a recent interview with Vogue India. “I know my limits.” Instead, she’s been focusing on her work as a special envoy for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and reflecting on how that mission has influenced the kind of parent that she is (and vice versa).“Cambodia was the country that made me aware of refugees. It made me engage in foreign affairs in a way I never had, and join UNHCR. Above all, it made me a mom,” Jolie told the magazine. “In 2001, I was in a school programme in Samlout playing blocks on the floor with a little kid and as clear as day I thought: ‘My son is here.’ A few months later I met baby Mad at an orphanage. I can’t explain it and am not one to believe in messages or superstition. But it was just real and clear.”[video_embed id='-1']RELATED: Angelina Jolie is fighting for women at the U.N.[/video_embed]The actor adopted Maddox from Cambodia in 2002, followed by her adoption of daughter Zahara, from Ethiopia, in 2005 and Pax, from Vietnam, in 2007 (after she and then-partner Brad Pitt had their first of three biological children together).“‘Adoption’ and ‘orphanage’ are positive words in our home,” said Jolie, who separated from Pitt after a decade together. “With my adopted children, I can’t speak of pregnancy, but I speak with much detail and love about the journey to find them and what it was like to look in their eyes for the first time.”As a director, Jolie has been compelled to turn the camera towards issues like the Khmer Rouge’s reign of terror in Cambodia (the subject of her 2017 film First They Killed My Father). And she credits her adopted children with influencing those artistic decisions: “All adopted children come with a beautiful mystery of a world that is meeting yours,” she said. “When they are from another race and foreign land, that mystery, that gift, is so full. For them, they must never lose touch with where they came from. They have roots that you do not. Honour them. Learn from them. It’s the most amazing journey to share. They are not entering your world, you are entering each other’s worlds.”“I am very blessed to have been allowed to be their mom,” said Jolie. “I am grateful every day.”[video_embed id='1981879']BEFORE YOU GO: Ben Mulroney steps down as etalk anchor[/video_embed]